Friday, June 09, 2006

It's in an environment of lobby scandals that Congress readys itself to allow the internet to be parcelled out to communications corporations with the disingenuously-named Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE). The House voted 321 to 101 for the bill, which does not include meaningful network-neutrality protections creates an opening that powerful telephone and cable companies hope to exploit by expanding their reach. They will be given incredible control with the ability to funnel internet subscribers and users in the direction they choose.

(SOURCE)"Congress is about to cast a historic vote on the future of the Internet. It will decide whether the Internet remains a free and open technology fostering innovation, economic growth and democratic communication, or instead becomes the property of cable and phone companies that can put toll booths at every on-ramp and exit on the information superhighway..."

"The protections that guaranteed network neutrality have been law since the birth of the Internet -- right up until last year, when the Federal Communications Commission eliminated the rules that kept cable and phone companies from discriminating against content providers..."

"More than 60 percent of Web content is created by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of network owners?"

"The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves monopoly power. They're spending tens of millions of dollars on inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists; coin-operated think tanks; and sham "Astroturf" groups -- fake grass-roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org."

"They're opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have rallied in support of net neutrality at http://www.savetheinternet.com/ . The coalition is left and right, commercial and noncommercial, public and private. Supporters include the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American Library Association, AARP and nearly every consumer group. It includes the founders of the Internet, the brand names of Silicon Valley, and a bloc of retailers, innovators and entrepreneurs. Coalitions of such breadth, depth and purpose are rare in contemporary politics."

"Most of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started out in their garages with great ideas and little capital..."

2 comments:

I was blogging about this ages ago (http://worshippastor.blogspot.com/2006/05/net-neutrality.html) and you don't even link to my blog?! I thought we were friends, I thought we were brothers in the Lord, I thought you were "better" than that, I thought we would blog into our 80's when we could write about how great the world was back in 2006. I don't even know you...